Giovanna d'Arco, Buxton Festival

Giovanna d’Arco, Buxton Opera House Bernard Lee By the time that the final curtain comes down, Buxton Festival’s production of Verdi’s Joan of Arc opera, which plays dramatic mayhem with historical fact, has just about convinced you that it is a better work than you thought it was.Gone are thoughts of unevenness, caused perhaps by a composer experimenting to find a new form of musical expression in his seventh opera. Something like that must have been in his mind when Verdi was writing it given the superiority of Nabucco and Ernani, which preceded it.The second half of opera (acts two and three) is consistently better than the first (a prologue and act one), although this thoroughly committed performance goes some way to ironing out the inconsistency.Stuart Stratford conducts Verdi’s score as if it is one of his finest and it has its moments – act two is particularly powerful. An augmented Northern Chamber Orchestra plays magnificently, but still finds itself eclipsed by the stunning sounds coming from the Festival Chorus!Among the three protagonists (effectively, the cast), while being a credible Giovanna (Joan), Kate Ladner pulls all the vocal stops out, although the occasional higher note above stave is not always pitched.As her father Giacomo, Devid Cecconi reveals a true Verdian baritone voice with bags of power, though just a hint of wooliness every so often, while as her would-be lover Carlo (Charles VII), Ben Johnson sings with lyric beauty but ultimately, lacks vocal heft for the part, especially in the ensembles.As you would expect from a stage director of Elijah Moshinsky’s stature and experience, the production has dramatic tautness.Spots can probably be picked off his interpretation of the opera but nothing really gets in the way of the impact it has, except perhaps the space-limiting black mirror structure at the back of the stage.